In recent years, we have begun to hear phrases that help us to examine what kind of parish we are members of. One phrase, in particular, is challenging us to look honestly at the purpose of the parish. In my training of parish leadership teams, I ask the questions, “Why does your parish exist?” and “After the work you have done all year, what is it that you are trying to accomplish?”

For many, this is the first time they are looking at the question. Before my coming, they were in a foggy, automatic pilot ministry model that had been on for years. The results of doing this for so many years has led us to a place where we don’t even see the limits we have placed before us.

When church participation was high, no one ever needed to think whether we were actually making disciples. We were busy just trying to deal with the numbers in the pews. Well the numbers have been in a consistent decline now, to the point of crisis. There are parishes all over the country that, when this last senior generation dies, will have no one left to keep them open. It’s already happening.

“We don’t know what to do.”

As I talk with parish staff, the majority of declarations are that they have no idea how to stem the tide. “The Catholics are leaving!!! They don’t want to come back so what else is there to do?”  Over the past few years of hearing this, I began to notice a trend; two, actually. The first one is pretty common and you have heard me say it before. The Catholic Church is so program-dependent that it doesn’t know how to do ministry outside of a program. The second is one that isn’t even on the radar that I have seen yet. Catholics only see themselves ministering to Catholics.

It is almost as if the Great Commission in Matthew 28 reads “Go therefore and make disciples of all Catholics!” Not only do we not know how to make disciples outside of a parish program, we see no possibility of regaining healthy parish participation and so we just close the doors. “No more Catholics are around to join any more, they’ve all moved out of the neighborhood.”

And yet all the houses around the church are still filled with souls in need of God’s redemption. We don’t look at them as possible future parishioners because we have no clue how to evangelize. We are so far away from the mark that we seriously need to overhaul our parishes and regain the missionary mentality.

We need to see the local parish as a beachhead in the foreign kingdom of Satan and start reclaiming souls for Christ. The beachhead was the place where the military secured a place from which the rest of the armed forces expanded territory. Come Holy Spirit and move through us with YOUR strength.